Page 60 of The Lady is Trouble

“Am I going to have to convince you?” she asked, creating a list in her mind of ways to do just that. Starting with the removal of his sadly-folded cravat, her lips moving to the enticing hollow beneath, then lower, and lower still. She closed her eyes to the image; that or follow through.

Frustrated and vastly awakened, her sigh ripped through the night.

Julian laughed, a rare sound, magical and earnest. He closed in, and she caught his scent and the heat of his body before he touched her. Cupping her jaw, he tilted her face into the moonlight. In his handsome visage, she saw the young man she had loved from the first moment she saw him stepping from her grandfather’s carriage. “Go easy on me, Yank. I beg of you,” he whispered, his breath flowing over her cheek and into the neck of the simple day dress—one easily removed—she’d chosen for the outing.

She slid her fingers into the hair brushing his crisp collar and with a gentle tug, brought him to her. “Closer.”

With a low growl of agreement, he captured her mouth in a display rough in urgency, stunning in perfection. Sensation swept her as he worshiped her before diving in, blatant seduction she could not deny.

Had no planstodeny.

The sound of the festival faded as Julian uttered fervent entreaties in her ear. Her thoughts scattered until she was nothing but a roaring heartbeat, flushed skin, staggered breaths. Responding, she arched into him, her pulse convening between her thighs in a molten rush. Her nipples peaked beneath her stays, imprisonment when she wantedrelease. She shifted her hips, seeking, a low moan bursting forth. He answered her demand, pressing her into the blanket, his body moving over hers, their sculpture molding into one. He slowly tugged her skirt to her waist, allowing one brief second of refreshing relief before the long, hard length of him settled, and she reheated, head to toe.

“You taste like home,” he said, his breath racing into her ear like a wave. She gasped as he nipped her earlobe, peppering her skin with goosebumps. “Like golden fields shimmering in the summer sun.” He trailed tender kisses along her throat, halting at the laced-edged neck of her dress. “Exquisite, as far as the eye can see.”

She skated her hand over each bump of his spine, to his lean hip, where she guided his movement against her. Her need was boundless, and she didn’t care if he knew it. Tugging his shirt from his trousers, she met bare skin with a beholden sigh. Linen, cotton, and silk, neatly stitched seams, ties, and buttons were all that kept their bodies apart.

“Here,now,” she urged, their rhythm caught between cool earth and dark sky, a rhythm as old as time. His hard length nestled between her welcoming folds, their bodies surging. Undoing strings,he opened her bodice, and she anticipated the arrival of his mouth with an excruciating surge of heat and cognizance. He nipped the side of her breast, and she moaned with approval. “Leave your mark on me, Jules.”

He lowered his brow to her shoulder, his breath a rapid shot across her inflamed nipple. Edging to his elbows, he palmed the blanket, sending his hips in a tighter fit against hers, pinning her to the ground in the most delicious way imaginable. “Not here, Yank, not here.”

“Why?”

“Ah, Piper, you unman me.” His hair, lustrous and thick, tumbled in his face, the tips brushing his hollowed cheeks. “I feel a boy, completely without aptitude.” His thumb swept her bottom lip and held for the briefest second. “I brought you here because I want toknowyou. More than…” With a harsh breath, he rolled to his back, his arm going over his eyes. His other hand found hers, fingers linking. “I’m trying to live my entire life in one day. I want to slow down. Record every heartbeat, every touch, every sigh.”

His poetic words were not surprising, though she was surprised he shared them. Julian was the most compassionate person she’d ever known. Even when he’d hurt her, she understood his motives were honorable though, at times, thoughtless.

“Jules, you know me better than anyone,” she said and squeezed his fingers, uncertain when she’d experienced the wondrously simple gift of holding his hand. Unwise to feel such possession over something so basic. “Because I’ve never held anything back when I’m sure I should have. From the first moment, standing on the drive outside my grandfather’s manor, such a conflicted expression on your face…I’ve never been able to deny you.”

His thumb traced a soft circle on her palm. “Then, I guess I want you to knowme.”

My, this night was presenting one astonishment after another.

Her heart soared. He was here, with her, not merely a fantasy born of loneliness and grief. Her gaze traveled over his lean stomach, his narrow hips, and lower, where his arousal made an impressive display beneath his trouser close. His aura flickered around him like a golden halo. Lifting her free hand, she trailed a finger along his chest, drifting over each waistcoat button, a leisurely glide to desire.

With a swift inhalation, he caught her hand before it reached its destination. Lifting their arms high, he pointed to the heavens. “See that one?” he asked, his voice a rough cut through the still night. “Next to Orion.”

Piper trained her eyes on the sky, where stars had begun to gather like shiny pearls nestled in black silk. The night was brilliant, cloudless, a breathtaking portrait.

“The brightest star is part of Canis Minor.”

“The smaller dog,” she whispered.

His gaze shifted from the constellation to her as a bemused expression crossed his face, gone so swiftly she almost missed it.

“Latin was on the agenda, you know.”

He lowered their arms, pressing her hand flat over his stomach, the warm hollow rising and falling with his breaths. “I didn’t know you kept a tutor around long enough to have an agenda.”

“See, look how much you’re coming to learn about me.” She turned, pressing her face against his chest. “Latin is not my only talent, I should hope.” At her teasing words, his pulse skipped beneath her cheek, matching the one tapping beneath the hand he held trapped on his belly. She was caught between blood and breath, owning those parts of him. His thoughts would complete the circle. Choosing her words carefully, she cracked the box open. “You’ve never talked about it. Your time before my grandfather brought you to me.”

He released a gusty exhalation, his hand tensing around hers. “The stars were of great comfort because they were steady, no matter if viewed from the window of a richly furnished bedchamber or the alley of a filthy warren. There was safety in the clouds. A refuge. Something I could touch without the curse of haunting, damning visions.”

Tears sparked her vision, but she swallowed past the sting. She wouldn’t embarrass him with senseless emotion when he was finally sharing painful memories. “Your father…”

Another exhale and a charged silence before he spoke. “He was exacting. And unkind, as I look at his actions from a man’s perspective. He brought out the worst in everyone. Servants, estate managers, family. The house was run on and largely by fear. When I began to touch things and tell stories, at a very young age, mind you, oh”—Julian huffed a sound somewhere between a laugh and growl—“his tolerance was not merely low, it was nonexistent. Somehow, he believed regular beatings would keep the visions at bay.” His lids dropped, lashes sweeping the shadowed skin beneath his eyes. “I’d have gladly accepted the abuseifit held them at bay. If the bruises cured me. But both, his loathing and my own”—he brought her hand to his lips and placed a soft kiss on her fingers—“was too much to bear. The visions were staying in my life. My father was the removable part. He was sick by then, though dying none too quickly.”

She tucked herself into him, shoulder to knee, an instinctive compulsion to protect.